You Left Me With Nothing (But I've Worked With Less)
by fictorium
Summary: So usually people write Swan Queen conceiving accidentally through magic and after a brief moment of confusion, Emma goes along with it and happily ever after ensues. But I'd really like to see a small glimpse where Emma didn't believe Regina and turned her away.


Regina's bathroom is probably Emma's favorite place in the whole house. There's space and light, but not so much that it echoes like the larger rooms downstairs. And the door locks, so when the fights get a little too much the marble and soft light provides a sanctuary. Emma smiles without meaning to every time she steps into the shower here, remembering the times she's been pressed against the cool walls of it, the times she's bent Regina over and tasted warm water as it sprayed off her skin.

Emma's looking for something insignificant and devastatingly ordinary when she sees the box in the trash. That Regina, anal to a fault, would neglect to put something cardboard in the recycling is the first official sign that everything Emma believes is about to come crashing down on her head.

The stick and its garish plus sign take no more than a second to expose, and Emma doesn't consider the hygiene or the invasion of privacy, or anything but the heaving in her stomach that she can't allow herself to give in to. Not yet.

It's the longest walk of her life, down step after carpeted step on that spiral staircase. Her socks make no noise on the floor as she crosses the last few feet to the door of Regina's home office. Mayor again, mother again. And now a mother one more time, at the cost of Emma's heart and the love she's been fighting for six months, unable to express it in anything but the way she sighs against Regina's shoulder before she falls asleep most nights.

"Hey," Emma says, like she's asking if it's time to start dinner, or if Henry has more homework than usual tonight. "I think we need to talk."

* * *

"Nobody ever believes me," Regina says later, as Emma shoves shirt after thong after sneaker into a duffel bag. "My whole life, I've been called a liar and you know what's funny? I'm one of the most honest people to come out of that damn Forest."

"Save it, Regina," Emma grunts, picking her deodorant and perfume from the dressing table, before sending all of Regina's expensive trinkets flying with a sweep of her arm. The room is a riot of overpowering smells then, rich and pungent and making Emma's eyes stream all over again. "We both know there's no such thing as a magic baby."

"Ask around," Regina says, clutching her head and pushing past the mess into the bathroom. "Just don't expect me to forgive the horrible things you've said."

* * *

"Mommy?" Emma blurts when Snow opens the door. It's mortifying, to say that word for the first time on a night like this, but Snow blooms at the sound of it, taking in Emma's tears and pulling her into a hug that ought to break a bone or two.

"It's okay, sweetheart," Snow murmurs against Emma's hair. "You have your family now. Whatever Regina did, we'll make her pay."

The last time, and the time before that, Emma had leapt to Regina's defense and outlined her own failings in the fights and arguments that had driven Emma out into the night. This time, she nods and lets her mother guide her indoors, where the sofa is comfortable and Charming is already fetching cold beers from the fridge.

"Tell us what's wrong," he says, pressing the green bottle into her hand.

"I need you to get your fairy friend over here," Emma says. "I have some questions about conceiving through magic."

"I'll go fetch her," Snow says, getting to her feet in a split-second. "Emma, wait here with your father."

* * *

It takes a screaming fight in the grocery store-Regina is showing now, and Emma snaps watching her accept help picking up a big bag of rice from some asshole Prince or other-for Emma to realize she can't let it go.

Blue swears up and down that conception by magic isn't possible, she told the whole story with Snow and Charming nodding like those bobbleheads in the back of a car. Can't bring anyone back from the dead, can't make anyone love you, can't make a baby without the raw ingredients. Emma should be relieved she already knew two thirds of that from Aladdin, but it's not much consolation when the woman she'd rip her own heart out for has fucked someone else and keeps lying about it.

Henry, getting between them in the cereal aisle, looks at Emma with such disappointment that for a moment she can't breathe.

"You're so bad at believing," he accuses, taking Regina's arm and picking up the basket she dropped to yell right back at Emma. "How many more times do you need to be wrong before you get it, Emma?"

He's been calling her Ma for a year now, since they crawled back from Neverland, bruised and broken with Neal dead a second time and Hook missing the rest of his arm and reverting to Killian once and for all. The return to her own given name now is a straw so final Emma's sure that everyone in the godforsaken store can hear it cracking across her back.

"I have to go," she says, and while that means leaving the store at first, she returns to her parents' house and packs the few things she can't ever be without in seven minutes flat. The eighth minute has her sitting at the wheel of her trusty Bug, hoping they'll understand why she had to take the blanket, why even now after finding them, she can't ever give that square foot of wool and ribbon and dried up tears back.

Regina and Henry are walking home from the grocery store when Emma drives past them on Main Street. She doesn't blow the horn, and despite the brightness of her car in the early evening light, neither one of them looks up when she passes.

* * *

She's in California when Henry emails, trying to pretend she gives a fuck about Malibu or the people in it, and he's a big brother as of seventeen minutes before she reads it.

If this were a movie, she'd hurl her phone in the ocean. But work has been slow, she's living off dwindling savings, and she already replaced half of her limited possessions in the past five months. Winter is closing in, so maybe she'll stay here where she doesn't have to front for a whole new wardrobe.

A reply would be so easy, a few words for the son who's every bit as awkward as she is sometimes. She could send love, or best wishes, be the goddamned mature adult in a situation where nobody has acted like either of those things. Emma wishes it didn't cut her to the quick, thinking of Regina going through hours of agony and sweating despair, maybe without anyone but a terrified kid to hold her hand.

_Fuck her_, Emma thinks, with uncharitable wondering about episiotomy scars or caesareans and other permanent changes. That kind of misery, all alone, is what Regina has brought down on herself a hundred times already. And if it's the last thing they'll ever have in common, it's that neither one of them had the good sense to pick a guy who'd stick around.

* * *

_Please_.

It's the 50th text in three days, and Emma is regretting ever relenting on giving Henry her number. She already changed it once, passing through Albuquerque, because he broke the rules and sent a picture of his baby sister. It had made her crash the Bug, after so many years of texting while driving, and for that it had been hard to forgive him. She drives a Toyota these days, because it was a great deal for paying cash, and sometimes it's more important that a car have air-con and a decent set of speakers than a lot of crappy memories and a weird noise every time it gets past third gear.

He never gives up, although it's been five years since Emma drove out of Maine. That baby he sent a picture of must be in school now, not that she ever asks. There was a call, once, in the middle of the night from Henry's phone. She knows it wasn't him and never mentioned it again. She doesn't mention much of anything to anyone, her only friends are the barflies and brokers she meets moving from town to town every few months. It's her old life, without the lure of Tallahassee, and Emma never imagined she would hate it so much.

This time, she pulls over and calls him back. It's nice to hear his voice sometimes, it's broken now, but apart from Christmas and his birthday Emma doesn't allow herself the indulgence. The deal is when they speak on the phone he can't be at the house, but she can tell when he's lying from twenty states away. Regina's silent presence in the background crackles down the line like static used to when everyone used landlines.

"What's the date?" She asks, no preamble, no pretense.

"June 10th," Henry grunts, and no matter how much he tries to hide it, Emma can feel how hard he's holding his breath for the answer.

"I'll be there," she sighs. "But just for the day, kid."

"Thanks, Emma," he says, and Henry's the one who hangs up on her.

* * *

She flies into Bangor on the evening of the 9th, leaving her car and everything but a smart gray pantsuit back in Houston. She doesn't want whatever happens this weekend to touch her new life, doesn't want the contamination of the lies and the things she isn't sure she can face.

Emma expected, if she's honest, that Regina would seize on the accepted invitation as an excuse to finally make contact. But aside from Henry forwarding an email with the program for the day, there's been no more talking than usual.

Maybe she's the only one still nursing a broken heart, five years later. She calls her parents from the airport, and they cry in relief at knowing she's such a small number of miles away after all this time. They plead for her to come to dinner, but Emma says she has some stuff to do. There's still a chance she'll get up in the morning and walk right back into the departure terminal, but it's cruel not to give them something after all the missed holidays and chances at a family life.

They blame Regina, of course, because she was absolutely the one at fault. Emma can't imagine how they make that bitterness work in a town so small, but Henry is seemingly allowed to spend time with his grandparents and that's really all that matters.

She drinks four bourbons, and a fifth just in case, but when her body slips beneath the starched sheets in her overpriced airport hotel room, Emma finds that sleep still won't come.

* * *

Rolling to a stop by the town sign, Emma lets the rental car's engine tick over for a few minutes as she considers. There's no sign of the damage she did, that first night in town, and even the orange spray paint has faded; a more permanent looking beacon lurks at the roadside now.

This far out there's no sign of what must be a town-dominating day. Henry's graduating class contains at least four or five kids from the town's most prominent families, and Emma supposes that includes the kid himself, with his family tree. She wonders if the townspeople still recoil when Regina walks into a room, if they gossip just as loudly in whispers that even the deaf could overhear.

There's only one way to find out, and although her legs seem to have turned to jello, Emma presses down on the gas and continues her reluctant homecoming.

* * *

Snow is waiting outside the house, pacing on three feet of sidewalk like she's waiting for the executioner instead of her only daughter. Emma expected to be replaced by now, but from what she's picked up in short conversations over the years, and Snow's rambling letters that wait at PO Boxes every few months, whatever curse they lifted to have Emma was only a one-time fix. Another reason to hate Regina, probably, but Emma's running out of energy for that.

Instead she gets out of the car like she just drove off a week ago, and lets her mother fly at her with a tearful hug that squeezes every breath from Emma's lungs. Charming is there a moment later, his arms as big and strong as ever, pulling them both close and fighting some quiet tears of his own. She's been punishing them too, Emma realizes, but even as she opens her mouth to say exactly that, they forgive her without a word.

"That's a nice suit," Snow says, her own dress pale blue and way too floral for Emma's taste. "Your blouse matches my dress."

"Uh, yeah," Emma says. "And your tie," she adds, nodding at Charming. "I guess I just remembered this is kind of school colors, so…"

"We'll meet Henry at the school," Snow explains. "She-uh, Regina-wanted to do something just the two of them this morning. But she's allowed us to host the party later."

"Yeah," Emma says, shifting from one foot to the other in her parents' living room, in a house she's never lived in. "Whatever you want. I just came because Henry asked."

"How's work?" Charming asks, squirming in his formalwear every bit as much as Emma. "You've been keeping busy?"

"Houston's got a lot for me," Emma tells them, because maybe it hurts less if it seems like the world keeps her away instead of her own choice. "Although there's an opening in New York I was thinking about."

"That's much closer," Snow says, her glee barely contained. "Are you… well, is there anyone?"

"Not the way I move around," Emma says. No matter the lack of age difference, parents are not the people you tell about seedy one-nighters and ill-advised long weekends with a woman whose name you can't remember but her eyes were just the right shade of brown, and she wore the crap out of a designer shift dress. "I'm not looking, anyway."

"Henry's really grown," Charming diverts, and she's grateful. "I know he sends pictures, sometimes, but he really looks like you these days. Just the hair is darker."

Snow shoots him a warning glare, and although Emma smiles at it, a moment later she realizes it doesn't make sense.

"Whatever happens today," Snow says, crossing the small space to take Emma's face in her hands. Emma wants to pull away, but she forces herself to endure the easy affection. "Please remember that we are your family, and we will always love you."

"It won't be that bad," Emma promises. "I'm over it. And we all know Regina is."

"Just… don't forget," Charming says, clasping her shoulder, his usually sunny face as serious as Emma has ever seen it. "And all those times we asked you to come home? We always meant it."

"Thanks," Emma says, and now she does squirm away from their touch. "Shouldn't we head over to the school now?"

"Let's go," Snow says, grabbing her purse. Emma heads out first, their unconscious leader once more.

* * *

Rows and rows of white wooden chairs, all perfectly parallel on the neatly-mown grass. It's something out of a Lifetime movie, and Emma feels stubborn tears prickle at the thought that the kid she gave away eighteen years ago made it to all of this. Despite pirates and flying and curses in turnovers, he turned out just great, and although it's a small class Henry has still graduated top of it, college beckoning in the fall.

The kid himself strolls into view a moment later, and Emma almost doesn't recognize him at first glance. It's Regina at his elbow, as unchanged as though the curse still existed, save for the way her hair has grown out a little and flicks differently around her face. The sight of them takes Emma's breath away, the family she thought she'd found, happy and complete without her. Complete with the blonde little girl that Emma sees next, skipping down the aisle between the two banks of seats in a gorgeous pale green dress.

"Emma!" Henry calls out, just at the moment she's ready to bolt. Her knees flex, but her feet are rooted to the ground in the low heels that were the only non-sneakers she could choose from for a summer event. "You made it!"

She doesn't take her eyes off him as he picks his way through the chairs towards her. Looking anywhere but Henry will ruin it all, will make her confront that nagging voice in the back of her mind.

"My first graduation," Emma says, accepting his hug and wondering just how in the hell he ended up taller than her. "Couldn't miss it."

"You didn't have a graduation?" Charming asks. "But you got your… you know."

"My GED?" Emma answers. "Yeah, but it wasn't so much a ceremony as they shoved it in the garbage sack with my clothes when I checked out of prison."

An awkward silence descends then, and Emma could kick herself because avoiding everyone else's eye means looking right at Regina, who's crouched down talking to her daughter. Her daughter with blonde, curly hair. Which even if Regina slept with freaking Thor, the dark hair should have dominated in the old gene pool; Emma remembers that much from science class before she decided smoking and running around with boys was way more relevant to her life. No, wait, that was eye color. But looking more closely-when, exactly, did Emma start moving towards them?-she notices the kid has eyes as green as Emma's own. And maybe that isn't right either, maybe it's all half-remembered bullshit, but Emma feels just what she felt the day Henry sent that photo against all her instructions. It's a pull in her gut, a tug of recognition strong enough to knock Emma on her ass, but she's still in motion and there's no time for falling over.

"Regina," she gasps, because if this feeling is what Emma thinks it is, she has a lot of groveling to do, starting right the hell now. "Regina, when you told me… when you said… is it really possible you told me the truth?"

"Would it matter now?" Regina is pure acid, despite the warm smile she gives her daughter immediately after. She stands, spine straight and hands on her hips. "I don't want you spoiling Henry's day. He's worked so hard for this."

"Listen to me," Emma growls, leaning in close. "I want you to swear, right now on both of these kids, that what you told me is the truth. That this little girl is mine, too."

"She could have been yours, regardless," Regina snaps. "Biology is not what makes a family, Miss Swan."

Miss Swan. Like they never kissed until they ran out of breath, like they never made each other come hard enough to make lights flash behind their eyelids. Like they never talked in whispers about a future, or skirted around not-quite-saying 'I love you'.

"Did you cheat on me, or not?" Emma demands, her parents at her back now but not interfering. "And if you didn't-if you honest to God didn't-why didn't you fight for me?"

"You should have believed me," Regina says, and although the spark of confrontation is still there, her voice sounds very small. "I thought we'd been through enough for you to finally understand that my word is my bond. I deserved that from you. Why would I fight for someone who still thought so little of me?"

She's radiant in her dark green dress, the blazer with piping draped over her arm. Emma can't think, can't form words as she drinks in the sight of Regina (her Regina) in front of her after such a long, long time.

"You fought for Daniel," Emma accuses a moment later. "You ended the world because he was taken from you. And you let me drive out of town without so much as calling me."

"I tried," Regina admits. "It took me too long, but I tried. You'd changed your number and told Henry not to give me the new one. I can take a hint. Instead I've spent five years raising this little replica of you, while you swanned around the country doing God knows what-"

"Mommy," the little girl interrupts. "Why are you mad? Who's the lady?"

"This is Emma," Regina says, lifting her daughter up with ease. "And Mommy isn't mad, sweetheart. We're just talking."

"Is she your friend?"

"She used to be," Regina says. "Do you want to go find our seats now? Shall we do that?"

"Regina, wait-"

"Not now," Regina says, her eyes darting around the space that's filling with the residents of Storybrooke. Henry pats Emma's arm, ready to go and join his classmates.

"I told you, Emma."

"It doesn't prove anything. I just-"

"Like fairytales aren't real, huh? And you never fought a dragon or watched me fly with Peter Pan? Come on, haven't we all suffered enough?"

"But look at you," Emma insists. "You turned out great."

"With a mom who's just a changing zip code, and the one you left behind crying herself to sleep for, like, two years. It's been pretty awful, actually. But we made it."

"I…"

Henry gives a mocking little wave and jogs off, his robes rippling as he moves. Emma takes a deep breath, and then another, ignoring the curious murmurs as people pass by. She can't turn around and look at her parents yet. She's replaying every conversation they've had, focusing on this morning's and the niggling feeling she didn't want to name, couldn't bear to confront.

"Emma."

It's Charming, in the end, who has the guts to break this spell. Emma reels around, ready to lash out with her tongue and her fists, only to crumple at the shame on their faces. They did this to her. So intent on getting her away from Regina in the short term that they'd let Emma give up another child.

"Did you ask Blue to lie?" Emma's voice is cracking, but she forces the words out. "Did you ask her? Or did she suggest it?"

"We didn't want you tied to Regina so soon," Snow bleats, her eyes shimmering with self-pitying tears. "It was only supposed to keep you apart for a while. But then you left, and you said you never wanted to come back…"

"I suppose I should give you credit. You didn't use the truth to blackmail me into coming back."

"We would never-"

"Which means once again your fucking _decency_ has cost me love I should never have had to give up."

"Emma-" Charming reaches out, but she pushes him away.

"Leave. Now," Emma barks, not caring who's turning around to stare. "I'm not missing this graduation. And I have a lot-a lot-to think about. Trust me, any small chance of me getting over this means I don't see you right now."

"We'll wait at the house. If you need us…"

"I won't," Emma says, turning away to see which seats Regina has picked. She's right in the front row, of course she is. And there's a free seat beside her on the aisle. "I'm sure someone will take photos."

She doesn't add that one deleted photo (okay, maybe she looked at it in her trash a few times, trying to guess the mysterious father) is all she's ever had of her daughter. That because of the life Emma was sent to and her unrequested destiny, she only had one photo of Henry for ten years, too. There's so much more she could say, but they're walking away at last and she needs to get to that seat before her knees give out once and for all.

"Presumptuous," Regina mutters as Emma lands heavily on the chair next to her.

"I'm sorry," Emma murmurs, because they're words that have only been dragged from her in the past, by angry fists or public shame. "I am so, so sorry, Regina. I should never have listened to them. I don't know how you managed not to kill them for this one."

"I thought about it, once the contractions started," Regina says, handing a tissue to the little girl beside her.

"I didn't even ask her name," Emma realizes, and although Henry must have mentioned it, there's nothing but a blank space there.

"My name is Amelia," she announces, so perfectly Regina in the haughtiness of it that Emma's sob breaks into a laugh about halfway through.

"That's a beautiful name," Emma tells her, leaning back so Amelia doesn't see the first tear fall, or notice Regina passing another tissue, to Emma this time. "Christ. I'm an idiot."

"Yes," Regina muses. "But I suppose we already knew that."

"Is there a chance…" Emma doesn't know how to ask, but she's going to fumble her way through it, even as the high school band members start noisily taking their seats. "If I can find a way to make this up to you...do you think you could forgive me, one day?"

"I don't know," Regina says, truthful to a fault. How could Emma ever have forgotten that about her? "Are you coming back, after today?"

"Not while… my parents. No."

"So there's not much point," Regina concludes. "I don't need a penpal."

"Henry's going to Yale in a few months," Emma points out. "It wouldn't be the worst thing to move a little closer. In case he needs anything."

"No," Regina sighs. "That wouldn't be the worst thing, I suppose."

"Is there going to be alcohol after all this?" Emma asks.

"I damn well hope so."

"Well, why don't you let me buy you a drink? Spend an hour telling me what an asshole I am, if nothing else."

"Before or after the DNA test?"

"I don't need that. I never did. I got scared and let people push me right where I was most scared of all."

"Well, I had it done about three years ago. The results are there, if you need confirmation. Gave Dr Whale quite the headache."

"Damn," Emma says, but the band is warmed up now, and the ceremony looks ready to begin. "Thank you. For letting me be here. For even talking to me right now."

"Well, my boyfriend couldn't make it," Regina explains as the headmistress of Henry's school takes the stage.

"Oh," Emma grumbles. "Right. Of course."

"Yes, still an idiot," Regina says, turning to Emma with mockery in her eyes. "But don't think the lack of… anyone means I'm available to you. You are lucky I even let you be here today, like you said."

"I'm not seeing anyone, either," Emma gets in before the official talking can start. "Not that I'm available, either."

"Well, it seems we're up-to-date," Regina replies, and though she sneers, there's no real malice in it. She looks relieved, almost. Like someone who just heard her terrible test results were nothing more than a mixup at the hospital. "Now, shush. And pay attention. Our son is about to graduate."

Emma does as she's told, facing the stage once more and folding her hands in her lap.

* * *

Somewhere in the crush of the crowd after the ceremony, Emma finds herself adrift. A moment later she sees Regina hugging Henry, saying something private to him as families converge in the space around them, chairs pushed aside as parents and siblings swarm each graduate. Emma sees Amelia waiting on her chair, getting jostled by passing kids. Without thinking, Emma moves in to steady her, and when the little girl looks up in a panic, Emma just reaches out to pick her up like Regina did earlier.

"You're Emma," Amelia says, apparently unfazed by this stranger hugging her close. She smells like clean clothes and some kind of fruity shampoo, everything good about childhood that Emma remembers about other people but never herself. "Henry told me 'bout you."

"Did he?"

"He says you're my other mommy, but you had to go on a mission," Amelia explains. "I'm glad you came to visit."

"Does your mommy know what Henry told you?" Emma asks, surprised how light a five year-old feels supported by just one arm.

"No," Amelia says, like Emma is still very much an idiot. "It's our secret." The duh is implied. "Do you still want to be my mommy?"

"Yeah, kid," Emma answers, her throat closing up and the tears welling enough to make Amelia just a fuzzy blonde blur for a moment. "If you think you need another one."

"Maybe," Amelia considers, and Emma laughs out loud. "Will you let me have Pop Tarts? Mommy says they're all sugar."

"You can have them," Emma agrees. "Sometimes. I used to make them for Henry when he wasn't much bigger than you."

"Okay then," Amelia decides, squirming until Emma sets her down. Regina is on her way towards them and Amelia runs into her legs with a happy little squeal.

"Drink?" Regina asks. "And so we're clear, that's all I'm offering."

"Wouldn't expect anything more," Emma says, before taking her turn at hugging and congratulating Henry. She's got a brand new laptop in her car for him, the graduation present he's hopefully going to geek out over, but they'll get to that later, when she's leaving.

"Mommy," Amelia announces. "Emma is my other mommy. Henry, can I tell her now?"

"Looks like you just did," Henry groans. "Sorry, Mom."

"It's fine," Regina says, just a little too brisk to be genuine. "Are you going to your grandparents' house?"

"Might give you two a chance to catch up," Henry offers. "I can take Amelia, too."

"No," Emma and Regina say in unison, though their reasons may not be the same. Emma can't bear the thought of being parted from her daughter now, even though the logical part of her brain is still screaming at her for accepting so readily. Regina no doubt is even less inclined to let her daughter spend time with Emma's parents than Emma herself.

"Fine," Henry says, smirking at both of them. "Play nicely, though? See you at the house later."

"Of course," Regina says, taking Amelia's hand then and nodding at Emma to take the other. "I think we're going to the park, first."

"Yes!" Amelia squeals, pulling both of them through the crowd.

"Regina," Emma says softly, trying not to draw attention. "Thank you."

"You're pushing her on the swingset," Regina says, just a hint of her old wicked glint in her eye. "So don't thank me just yet. Amelia does not tire easily."

"Thank you anyway," Emma insists, squeezing her daughter's hand gently as they walk, leaving the crowd behind.

They step out into the streets of Storybrooke, the late morning sun blazing in the sky above them, and Emma tries not to notice just how much it feels like home. There's fighting and apologizing and more to deal with than she can conceive of right now, not least the pain of what her parents have done to her. In this moment, Emma can't think much beyond the way her arm jerks as Amelia skips, and the way Regina's arm jerks in perfect unison with her own. It's not much, it's not even close to what they had before. But right now, Emma thinks, looking at the woman she hasn't forgotten how to be in love with, it might just be enough.


End file.
